Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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1179. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if his Department is currently on schedule to meet its obligations under the first Programme Plan of Action of the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People; and to outline any risks to delivery that have already been identified. [62898/25]

Jerry Buttimer (Cork South-Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department's mission is to promote rural and community development and to support vibrant, inclusive and sustainable communities throughout Ireland. In delivering on our remit my department liaises with stakeholders in communities around the country on an ongoing basis, including through the Local Authorities, Local Community Development Committees, Public Participation Networks and the Local Development Companies, to ensure that supports provided are timely and appropriate to the needs of communities.

There are a number of items in the first Programme Plan of Action of the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People that my Department will specifically action. In particular, those items relate to having regard to Universal Design and accessibility principles for capital schemes across wider rural development investment programmes, delivering inclusivity and capacity building supports and activities for disabled people through the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP), and assisting Public Participation Networks (PPNs) to ensure that they are as representative as possible.

At present my Department is on track to meet its obligations under the first Programme Plan of Action and no known risks to delivery of obligations have been identified to date.

All project applications under the Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme are required to demonstrate how their application will enhance access for disabled people and that all larger project applications over €50,000 (measures 2 &3) will be required to demonstrate alignment with Universal Design Principles. This was applied for ORIS 2024/25 and it is my Department’s intention to continue with this requirement for future iterations of the fund.

The ‘Barriers to Involvement in Public Participation Networks’ research report was published last month and is, together with an accessible, easy-read version, available on the gov.ie website. The research outputs have been circulated to the 31 Public Participation Networks (PPNs) across the country, and a webinar to present the research findings and recommendations to the PPN community and sector stakeholders was held on 12 November 2025.

The Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP), our country’s primary social inclusion initiative, also commits to a number of deliverables under the programme plan. Actions include increasing the proportion of programme actions targeting people with disabilities, increasing the proportion of disabled people receiving supports on the SICAP caseload, increased supports for community organisations focused on disability equality and inclusion and increasing the number of community activities targeted at disability inclusion and equality. All actions are scheduled for reporting in Q4 2026 and at present it is not anticipated there will be any barriers to achieving the programme’s commitments under the strategy.